levered my breasts into the cups of the second bra. It was the same hot-pink style Poppy had picked up, low-cut and padded, with a contrasting trim of black ribbon round the top of each cup.
‘It’s a one-in-three chance,’ said Trish.
I stared at myself in the mirror. The bra was a perfect fit. It plumped up my little breasts into firm globes, filled them out so that for the first time I saw myself with the body of a woman. I turned to look in the second mirror for the side view. I had an outline, a proper shape. I felt a silly grin start at the corners of my mouth.
‘So what d’you think?’ said Poppy.
‘It’s great,’ I said. ‘Terrific. Count me in.’
I pulled my dress on over my head, and looked at the new shape the bra underneath it gave me. I put my hands on my hips, I sucked in a big breath, and watched my bosom rise with my ribcage. I could knock somebody’s eye out with boobs like these.
‘You found anything you like?’ asked Poppy, from next door. ‘I’m going to get the lacy one, and Trish can’t make up her mind.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘No, I can’t be bothered. It wasn’t that nice.’ I looked at myself in the mirror again. I stood on tiptoe, stuck out my chest and pretended to be the girl on the cover of the Roxy Music album.
I heard the door of the next-door cubicle swing open.
‘Ready?’ called Trish.
‘Ready,’ I said, reaching up and taking down the other bra from the peg. I picked up my school satchel and pushed out through the doors.
Trish glanced with a sneer at the surgical-stocking bra in my hand. ‘You’re not thinking of buying that?’
‘Course not,’ I said, as scornfully as I could manage. ‘I was just trying it on for the size.’ I walked out of the changing rooms, and hung the bra back on the rail. ‘I’ve got loads of bras at home. You made up your mind?’
‘I’m going to wait till Saturday and I’ll get Mum to come in and help me choose,’ said Trish. I glanced down at the bras she was putting back. They weren’t C-cups at all, they were Bs. And no wonder she wasn’t going to buy them right now. They cost more than a couple of dresses would at Top Shop.
Poppy had finished paying for her bra and was putting her purse away. The middle-aged saleslady with the enormous bosom like a bolster started to rearrange the bras on the rail, clattering the hangers to show her disapproval of the way we had left it. Instinctively I rounded my shoulders and tried to look as concave as possible. But I could feel the new bra hugging me, two secret strong hands cupping my breasts.
It was only when we got outside that I started to feel anxious.
‘Right,’ said Trish, standing on the pavement. ‘What are we going to do now?’
I could feel the elegant dummies in the shop window staring accusingly at me. I expected the heavy doors of the store to swing open, and a posse of sales assistants, led by Bolster Bosom, to pour out waving and shouting, That’s her! That’s the thieving little bitch who stole a pair of new breasts.
‘Let’s go,’ I said, my shoulders prickling, expecting a heavy hand to close on my arm at any moment. ‘I really should get home.’
That didn’t suit Poppy and Trish at all. They wanted to see Rocky.
‘There’s a showing in a quarter of an hour,’ said Trish, looking at her watch. ‘Just right.’
‘Better get a move on, then,’ I said, ‘or you’ll miss it.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Poppy. ‘The cinema’s about three minutes away. Anyway, aren’t you coming?’
I’d seen it on Saturday, of course, with Dad, but I couldn’t tell them that. ‘I’ve got to get home,’ I insisted. ‘Look, I’m going to head for the bus stop. Don’t want to miss one and have to hang around.’
‘You’re antsy,’ said Trish.
‘My dad,’ I said, inspired. ‘You know. I don’t want to upset him.’
‘Oh. Sorry. I forgot.’ Trish pursed her lips, looking concerned. ‘Are you all right, Katie? We were worried on Saturday when you didn’t show. I mean, we didn’t know about your gran, we thought—’
‘I’m fine,’ I said, casting another despairing look at Jolly’s doors. ‘No problem. Just … got to get home. In case.’ I backed away. I didn’t want to turn sideways on to them in case they noticed my new silhouette.
‘Katie?’ said Poppy. ‘You can always tell us, you know.’
I put the biggest smile I could manage on to my face and shook my head to indicate there was nothing to tell. As I turned the corner, I saw that Poppy was still gazing after me, but Trish had turned away to look at the clothes on the snooty dummies.
I had just missed a bus. I could still see it in the distance, chugging along the road, and I thought of running to catch up but I wasn’t sure what that would do to my new breasts. I was sure the bra was making them grow. I worried they might spill over the top, like dough left in a warm place to rise.
There was a bench near the bus stop, and I sat on one end of it, leaning my head on the sooty wall behind. The pavement smelled of traffic and stale pee. My feet kicked at discarded beer cans, a leaf fall of cigarette butts. From here I had a good view back along the road towards the city-centre shops, and I’d have plenty of warning if Bolster Bosom and her posse of enraged store detectives came steaming towards me. I’d run then, all right.
Thinking of what I had done, I felt my breasts shrivel back to normal size. Smaller, even. The secret strong hands of the bra were cupping empty air. I’d never stolen anything in my life before. I stared at the cars crawling past, feeling sick. I had taken something I hadn’t paid for. Weren’t you supposed to get some sort of thrill out of stealing? I wasn’t excited any more; I just had a big solid lump of undigested fear sitting at the top of my stomach.
‘Katie,’ said a woman’s voice I didn’t recognize. I nearly shot off up the road. ‘Katie Carter. Isn’t it?’
An unfamiliar woman was standing at the other end of the bench, looking at me. But I knew I’d seen her before. She had short dark hair flicking on to her cheeks like feathers and she wasn’t very tall.
I felt the bra-hands on my chest clench into my body and squeeze my stomach shut. For a moment I couldn’t breathe. I stared at her, aching with hope. I wasn’t sure if I was going to cry.
‘I’m Janey Legge. From the library, remember?’
The hands let my stomach go and all the hope dropped out of me on to the dirty pavement under the bench. There was nothing left inside but disappointment.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you. You’ve gone a funny colour–are you all right?’
‘I’m fine,’ I said. I hoped she couldn’t hear the wobble in my voice.
She sat down on the bench next to me, looking worried. Now she was close to me, I could see how stupid I’d been. She was years younger than my mother would be. Her hair wasn’t short at all, it was long, caught up into a bun at the back of her head, with short feathery bits pulled out to curl on to her creamy cheeks. It had a reddish tint that didn’t look natural. Her face was thinner than my mother’s too, with a pointy ski-jump nose, and high cheekbones.
‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ she said.
She wasn’t my mother. How dare she worry about me? How dare she make me think—
‘I’ve seen you lots of times at the library,’ she went on, ‘and your father was telling me all about you on Saturday. He’s ever so proud of you, you know.’ She smiled at me. There was a fleck of dark plummy lipstick on one of her front